Make up for the more owed yesterday.

…………

In the face of the turbulent river, the coalition fleet was full of unwillingness. The loss of two warships, the main thing is that they collided and sank two before they saw the enemy. The commander of the British fleet, Admiral Empot, was depressed.

The enemy's desperate tactics are very effective. Although the warships of the British and French forces are strong, what can they do if they can't cross these waters?

Looking at the merchant ships waiting on both sides of the Yangtze River, General Embutt suddenly admired the commander of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Cutting off the Yangtze River will certainly cause the disruption of domestic and foreign trade, but it is safer to close it than to be breached by the enemy. What's more, the main waterway of the Yangtze River was blocked, big ships could not enter, and small boats may not be impassable, and the Qing Dynasty did not have many large merchant ships, so the biggest losses in this blockade were British and French merchants.

"Good means, good calculations!" General Embutt could only sigh in the face of the raging river.

The coalition forces sent people to rescue those sailors who fell into the water, and the coalition forces had no way to deal with the two sunken warships.

They sent small boats to reconnoitre, and determined that neither the warships nor the medium- and large-sized wooden sailing ships could pass through, so they gave the order to withdraw their troops.

Of course, the coalition forces are coming with a lot of momentum and cannot do nothing. Eighteen warships turned their guns and went down the river to bombard Jiangyin City.

There are not many soldiers in Jiangyin City, although there are some earthen cannons, but they can't hit the river. They weren't stupid enough to deal with the foreigners' guns. but the turtle cowered in the city and did not come out.

The coalition warships did not land, not because they didn't want to, but because they didn't carry much land at all. This time, their main opponent along the river was the Jiangnan Navy Division who was deceived by Hong Tiangui, and the second was to shell Nanjing City and give Hong Tiangui a dismount. Now this anger can only be borne by the hapless Jiangyin City.

After venting, looking at Jiangyin City filled with firelight, the coalition fleet finally turned around and returned to Shanghai along the river.

In the upper reaches of Jiangyin, Lu Shunde, who received the news of the retreat of the foreigners, breathed a sigh of relief, but when he learned the news that Jiangyin City had suffered heavy losses from shelling, he scolded the British and French forces for being shameless.

On the same day, the news on the Yangtze River waterway was sent to Tianjing City, and Hong Tiangui saw that the British and French armies were unlucky enough to silence the two warships, and the look on his face was quite wonderful.

"Two medium-class steamers, this is a great gift from the British and French forces!" Hong Tiangui thought of the two sunken ships, and immediately ordered Lu Shunde to salvage the two British and French warships at all costs.

The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom also has its own shipbuilding industry, after Hong Tiangui's expansion and reorganization, it is now able to manufacture wooden sailing ships of the Manchu Shizu Division, but this kind of sailing ships have some role in the inland waterway, and when they reach the open sea, they are simply the target of foreign warships, so Hong Tiangui only built two as transport ships, and at the same time ordered the shipwrights to disassemble two British steamer merchant ships, which were used as a blueprint to develop the Heaven's own iron steamer.

Hong Tiangui understands that it will not be long before the iron-clad steamer will be eliminated, and the world ocean will be the world of ironclad ships. And now the Western countries are probably already secretly designing and producing ironclad ships. Even if they mastered the technology of building iron warships, they still lagged behind the British and French navies.

But you can't get fat in one breath, in this era, ironclad ships can only appear in the West, and the weak industry of the Kingdom of Heaven can't support it at all. Therefore, Hong Tiangui could only retreat to the production of some iron warships. And the first iron warships in this era are undoubtedly the warships of Britain and France, originally Hong Tiangui did not get the way, can only study iron merchant ships, now there are two medium-class warships sunk in the Yangtze River, the enemy did not care, this is their opportunity. Of course, this kind of salvage can only be carried out at night, otherwise the foreigners will definitely send warships to interfere.

On the battlefield of Shanghai, the Huai army withdrew from the city of Jiading and pursued the troops of the servant Li Shixian.

The 1,500 cavalry of the Huai army, as the vanguard, quickly pursued in the direction of the king's withdrawal.

The squire also had firearms, and after meeting Li Xiucheng, Li Shixian also initially understood the power of firearms. But after all, he just listened to Li Xiucheng, and Li Shixian didn't experience it personally. His army is still a mix of firearms and cold weapons. And the Huai army, which had just defeated more than 1,000 people, made Li Shixian quite disdainful of the Huai army's combat effectiveness.

The cavalry was rampant and soon broke away from the large forces.

In the mountains, Li Shixian's men and horses had already been ambushed. When the Huai cavalry plunged headlong into their pockets, the battle began.

The commander of the cavalry was Pan Dingxin, and when a boulder blocked the road in front, he had already noticed that something was wrong, and immediately turned around and wanted to escape from the encirclement.

Unfortunately, it was too late at this time, and the Taiping troops in charge of piercing the pocket used boulders and giant trees to block the return route, and then waves of arrows rained down head-on.

"Careless!" Pan Dingxin yelled, and at the same time ordered the army to hide their bodies on the spot. As for the war horse, it has become a burden at this time.

After stabilizing the situation, the people of the king Li Shixian suddenly stopped their attack and began to persuade people to surrender.

Pan Dingxin was furious and angrily rebuked Li Shixian as a thief, and at the same time he organized soldiers to form a defensive position.

Pan Dingxin's cavalry is not a rookie egg, but a veteran who followed Li Hongzhang's army, these soldiers are all those who experienced the defense of Shanghai and were lucky to survive in the end. And cavalry is also a special type of troops, and it is not something that recruits can control. Therefore, the cavalry of the three battalions are basically veterans, and they are also the most powerful in the Huai army.

Seeing that the surrender failed, although Li Shixian regretted the more than 1,000 war horses, he still decisively gave the order to attack.

Twenty miles to the rear, the main force of the Huai army, which was marching, received the news that the cavalry was ambushed.

Li Hongzhang was shocked, but he did not lose his senses.

"My lord, there are anti-thieves and horses in front, they are under the banner of anti-thief Li Shixian, and the number of troops should be around 5,000." Exploring the Malay newspaper, traces of the Taiping army appeared in front.

"He actually sent troops to stop us, Li Shixian seems to want to eat three battalions of our cavalry, Li Shixian is so bold." Li Hongzhang roared angrily, and he ordered Zhang Shusheng to lead fifteen battalions to continue to advance disguised as the main force of the army, and the enemy must not be allowed to discover that the main force was no longer in the situation within two hours.

And Li Hongzhang personally led the main force to bypass the road ahead and advance in a roundabout way.

It was not Li Hongzhang's Huai army that could not defeat the 5,000 soldiers and horses in front of him, the enemy's purpose of blocking them and delaying time was too obvious, Li Hongzhang looked down on the 5,000 Taiping army, he was more worried about the loss of his cavalry troops, the cavalry of those three battalions was the essence in his hands, and the value of the ten battalions was greater than the current ten battalions.

Zhang Shusheng perfectly carried out Li Hongzhang's order, and his ten battalions of soldiers swaggered towards the Taiping army's blocking position under the banner of 80 battalions.

The main force led by Li Hongzhang bypassed the blocking position and rushed to the place where the cavalry was surrounded an hour later, Li Hongzhang ordered the army to counter-encircle, trying to wrap up the army of the king Li Shixian at one time!